Is Timber Industry Dragging Its Knuckles At Green Design?

It's not often that people take issue with green buildings, where occupants are healthier, less energy is used and the environment is less negatively impacted. But this week as the AIA has lobbied the state legislature to pass a bill requiring all state buildings to achieve a 'Gold' LEED rating from the US Green Building Council, the timber industry has taken issue because it could mean less wood used in Oregon buildings.

"It's like a slap in the face," Bill Kluting of the Carpenters Industrial Council told The Oregonian's Dylan Rivera in an article from this morning's Business section. I'd suggest that it's a self-slap.

LEED buildings get credit for using wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the requirements of which are more stringent than mainstream timber industry practices. You know, less clear-cutting and more habitat/forest preservation.

Rather than looking in the mirror and seeing both the changing public values and financial opportunity from better protecting the forests it harvests, the timber industry instead favors the state scrap LEED requirements in favor of another green building rating system, Green Globes, which recognizes several forestry standards, including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, which more or less simply defers to state laws.

It's easy for me to criticize the timber industry for not being progressive enough. I don't live in a small town with heavy dependence on logging to support my family. But ever since the spotted owl incident of the early 90s, when the timber industry fought to cut down old grown temperate rainforests (some of the world's last remaining), including the habitat of this endangered species, I've been skeptical of any timber company looking out for the environment or anything other than business and jobs. Their fight against LEED and Senate Bill 576 confirms that suspicion in my mind. Oh, and I also wretch at clear-cutting that scars the landscape, seen every time I drive to the coast.

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Just in case anyone is really offended at my casting the timber industry as cavemen, I want to be clear it's just a joke an I mean no disrespect. (Or certainly not much.) Don't want an Imus incident - just having some fun at the clearcutters' expense.

i think the industry is probably too filled with animus towards the green community to think logically here.

right now, building on the oregon "brand", and this LEED mandate (which essentially could be turned into a subsidy), the oregon timber industry could easily position itself as a national/international leader in forest management and green practices.

they are really behind the ball on this one and seem to be lacking very basic business sense....

I agree that it is a slap in the face of the Oregon timber industry, a needed one. It is time for the industry to become more progressive and relevant in the sustainable movements in design, building and lifestyle. The timber industry has the opportunity to reposition and turn itself into a viable market leader in sustainable products, instead, it wants to continue the propping up a failing system with subsidies that do nothing but inhibit change. This refusal of the industry to evolve will, in the long run, be more damaging to logging communities.

Marcus, in correcting my spelling, you made a punction error. I think you meant to write "It's," which means "It is." "Its", written without an apostrophe, is a possessive, used in phrases like "off its mark".